The Haunting of Community General
by Mearain
Summary: Norman is positive that the hospital is haunted and hires someone to find out.


Kennedy McGuire: Ghost Hunter  
"The Haunting of Community General"  
By: Mearain  
mearain@yahoo.com  
  
Taken from the files of Kennedy McGuire and her cases.  
  
The door to her office opened slowly, a small sliver of light from the hallway penetrating the dark interior of the room. "Hello?" a voice followed the movement of the door, a pair of spectacled eyes peering in.  
"Can I help you?" a soft female voice answered his query.  
A rather short, stoutish man entered the office, his expression showing no small amount of embarrassment at being there. "I was looking for Mr. McGuire," he murmured, looking around the office almost expecting some man in a grey jump-suit to come barrelling out of nowhere.  
"That's Ms. McGuire," the lady said as she stood from behind a darkly stained mahogany desk. As she stepped around it, she extended her hand to him. "Kennedy McGuire," she introduced, a soft smile on her lips.  
The man stared at her, then jumped as the door behind him finally came to a close. He spun around, his hands raised in front of him in some sort of defensive manoeuvre.   
"It's only the door," she reminded him, smirking as he jumped again when she laid her hand on his shoulder. "Was there something I could help you with?" her voice held the air of amusement, yet was also filled with an intelligence rarely found in the world.  
He blinked and looked at her, then moved to straighten his soft beige suit jacket. "Norman Briggs," he said, extending his hand to her for the handshake that was missed moments earlier.   
She gripped his hand in hers, shaking gently, then released as she moved around to seat herself behind her desk. The soft light of the office set her hair aglow, making it appear a fiery halo.  
Norman stared at her for a moment, then cleared his throat. "I am the director of Community General Hospital," he explained, adjusting his modernistic art tie a little. "And I would like to hire you to take care of a problem in the hospital."  
"And that problem would be?" she inquired, leaning back in her chair, hands clasped over one knee. She didn't appear at all to be what a person would expect a parapshycologist to be. Most of the time people laughed at her, asking her where her proton beam emitter and lab coat were. It bothered her at first, but now she just laughed with them.   
"Ghosts," he whispered, leaning forward a little. "At least three of them."  
"Three different ones? Or three sightings?"  
He thought for a moment, then clarified his statement. "Three sightings."  
She nodded, then took a breath as she reached for the small framed spectacles that lay on her desk. She slipped them on, letting them rest comfortably on the bridge of her nose. The tiny frames fit her face perfectly making her appear even more intelligent. It gave her the appearance of a professor of some sort.  
"Well, I can help you with this, but there is a contract," Kennedy stated, reaching into the top drawer of her desk. She withdrew a group of papers and started flipping through them.   
The two, employer and employee, discussed the terms of the contract for a while, before Norman finally signed at the 'x' on the last page. He felt as if a weight had been lifted from him by doing so.   
"Thank you, Mr. Briggs," she smiled at him, separating the contract into the appropriate sections, handing him the ones that he kept and filing hers. Kennedy loved this part of her job; the search for ghosts. It was her life's work, her love, her desires. It was everything to her.   
Ever since she had been a little girl and had seen her first spirit, she wanted to know more about them, to understand them, to learn why they were still here. There were so many questions to have answered, so many curiosities, so much to learn. And she wanted to learn it all.  
She had been twelve years old when she was locked in an old house, known to the entire neighbourhood to be haunted. She wasn't scared though. She thought it was fun. So she spent the night in that house, only to learn late that evening, that the house was indeed haunted. And by a none too friendly ghost.   
Her parents had been sure that she would be scarred for life, but instead she wanted to go back, to find the ghost, to speak with it.   
Since that day, that was all she wanted to do.  
"When can you start?" Norman asked softly, reading over the contract one more time before folding it neatly and slipping it into his jacket pocket.  
Her emerald green eyes lifted from her filing, sparkling a little in the dim light. "Right away, Mr. Briggs," she said, her lips forming a bright smile.  
  
***  
  
"Norman, you didn't." Mark Sloan covered his eyes, shaking his snowy haired head.  
"I had to do something. These reports of strange occurrences are getting out of hand. Just this week there were three."  
"Three?" the brown haired doctor asked as he took a drink of his coffee.  
Norman nodded to Doctor Travis, raising a hand to count off the reports. "Two from the ER nurses. Both reported having seen instruments moving around by themselves. And one young nurse in maternity reported seeing the wooden rocker rocking by itself."  
Amanda Livingston, forensic pathologist and county medical examiner, shook her head in amusement. "Norman, those things could have been easily from fatigue, not spiritual activity."  
"No," the short man shook his head, his voice firm. "No, these are definite ghosts."  
Mark finally opened his mouth to speak, after digesting what he'd been told. "So then who is this person that you hired?" He was almost expecting the Ghostbusters.  
Norman's face brightened up a moment. "Kennedy McGuire, a ghost hunter."  
Jesse nearly choked on his coffee. Amanda was on her feet in a flash, patting the young doctor on his back while he dabbed at his mouth with a napkin.   
"Ghost hunter?" Mark asked, fearing the worst.   
"Yes," Norman nodded, beaming proudly. He didn't quite understand what he was saying. Then again, Norman wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer.  
  
  
  
***  
  
Kennedy stood in the waiting area of the Emergency Room, looking around,  
taking in everything. Her instincts told her that something was there, or at least  
had been there fairly recently, but she wasn't sure what it was or what it could  
have been. But it definitely was spiritual.   
"Ms. McGuire?" Norman asked from behind her, but received a raised finger  
in response. He immediately closed his mouth.  
Her eyes were locked on a far point on the wall, studying something there,  
but Norman couldn't quite make out what that something was. To him the wall  
appeared normal. He figured it had to have been something from the nether planes.  
After a moment of strained silence, she turned to face him, her spectacles  
placed low on her nose. "Never interrupt me when I'm working," she said, her  
tone low and firm.  
"Yes, ma'am," he replied, dropping his gaze to the tiled floor much like a  
scolded child would do. Norman was not a shy man by nature, but something  
about women always made him feel uncomfortable. Maybe that was why he  
had never married.  
She took a breath, then crossed her arms over her chest. "Anyhow, what  
can I do for you, Mr. Briggs?"  
"I wanted you to meet a few of my staff," he replied, glancing back up at  
her in time to see her toss her fiery locks over her shoulder.   
She raised a perfectly manicured brow. "You're staff?" she queried.   
Normally, she didn't like to speak with others when she was working, unless of  
course they had been in direct contact with something of the spiritual nature.   
"Would these be staff members that have seen or felt these ghosts that you  
wanted me to find?"   
"Well," he started, swallowing the lump in his throat. "No, but they are good  
friends of mine."  
"Mr. Briggs, unless these staff members have seen the spirits that you hired  
me to find, or have had any other sort of contact with them, then I would prefer to  
be left to my work." Her face was not stern, but was her voice showed that she did  
not like to be interrupted. A soft smile crossed her lips as she noticed him blush  
slightly. "It's all right, I'm not angry, I just would like to work in peace."  
"I understand," he nodded, forcing a smile in return. He watched as  
she turned from him and moved across the waiting room to the other side, near the  
large plate glass windows. He sighed softly and turned as well, heading back to the doctor's lounge and his waiting friends.  
  
***  
  
"So, where is this ghost hunter?" Jesse inquired, glancing up from his magazine as the door opened and the stout hospital director entered.  
"Busy," he replied, sinking down onto the couch. "I interrupted her in the  
middle of some spiritual connection."  
Amanda smirked slightly, letting her expression return to something serious  
as Norman looked at her. "I'm sure that she knows what she's doing."  
He nodded, his eyes falling back to where his hands were clasped in  
his lap.  
"Norman, you look like someone took away your favourite teddy bear,"  
Steve's voice sailed into the doctor's lounge, his comment gaining a  
laugh from Jesse and a smile from Amanda.  
Norman frowned at him, but said nothing. Instead, he pulled his stout  
frame up and stood tall. Straightening his cocoa coloured suit, he nodded curtly to  
Amanda, then left.  
"What's with him?" the detective queried, watching him leave, his thumb  
pointing over his shoulder to the hospital director's form as it disappeared into the  
elevator.  
Jesse stood and moved to the coffee pot, refilling his mug. "He thinks the  
hospital is haunted."  
The pathologist chuckled as she stood. "I'll see you two later. I have a date  
with a cadaver."  
Her comment and smile made both men shudder. Steve shook his head,  
grabbing a mug and filling it for himself. "Haunted?" he asked, furrowing his brow.   
"Why would Norman Briggs, the man who doesn't believe in Santa, the Easter  
Bunny and the Tooth Faerie, think Community General is haunted?"  
Jesse took a sip of his steaming coffee and shrugged. "I don't know, but I  
can tell you that I haven't seen anything weird."  
Steve smirked at him and Jesse corrected his comment. "OK, as far as  
ghosts go, I haven't seen anything weird."  
The detective laughed and drank his coffee, smiling at his dad as he  
entered. "There you are. Ready for some lunch? I hear today is meatloaf in the  
cafeteria," he said, setting down his coffee mug and rubbing his hands  
together in anticipation.  
His dad grimaced and shook his head. "I will not eat that stuff."  
Jesse smiled at them and finished his coffee. "Well, I'll see you two later.   
I've got rounds."  
They waved good-bye to the young resident doctor, then turned to each  
other. "How about somewhere outside of the hospital?" Dr. Sloan suggested with  
a hopeful glint in his eye.  
Steve pouted for a moment then gave in. "All right, somewhere else then."  
Mark clapped him on the back as they left the doctor's lounge. "My treat."  
  
***  
  
Kennedy still stood in the waiting room of the ER, though she had a clipboard in hand this time. She made a small map of the waiting room, making  
marks here and there as to where she had felt some sort of spiritual activity.   
As she looked at her map, she took a few steps backward, making a couple  
of small circles, then a few x's. Her mind was so engrossed in her work that she  
was paying little attention to where she was going.  
In a quick movement, she spun around on her heal, running face first into a  
rather hard shoulder.   
She grunted and dropped her clipboard, her hand flying to her nose.   
"Oh, I'm sorry," a voice responded, a hand landing on her arm. "Are you all  
right?"  
She glanced up to see who she had made contact with in a rather painful  
manner. Kennedy blinked slowly as she gazed into the most captivating pair of  
hazel eyes she had ever seen.  
Her head bobbed up and down a little as she lowered her hand. "Yes, no  
harm done." She wiggled her nose, just to make sure. "At least nothing  
permanent."  
He smiled down at her. "Good, I'd hate to see such a pretty lady injured,"  
he replied, his tone charming as always when he approached a lady.  
The snowy haired man behind him rolled his eyes and smiled, shaking his  
head in amusement.  
"Steve, Steve Sloan," he said, holding his hand out to her.  
She slipped her fingers into his hand, shaking it slowly. As he returned the  
handshake, she made note of his strong grip. "Kennedy McGuire."  
"Nice to meet you," he said, releasing her hand slowly, though his eyes  
never left her deep emerald orbs. Something in those eyes was so alluring, they  
seemed to just pull him in, threatening to hold him there for eternity.  
"Did you say Kennedy McGuire?" the snowy haired man asked from behind  
them.  
The fire headed woman tore her gaze away from Steve's to glance at the  
speaker. "Yes, do I know you?"  
"No, you don't," he smiled at her. She noticed that they seemed to have a  
similar smile, both charming and kind. "My name's Mark Sloan, chief of internal  
medicine here at the hospital. This is my son," he gestured toward  
Steve as he spoke. "Norman mentioned your name a while ago. He said that he had hired you to find these ghosts that he was so worried about."  
She nodded, clasping her hands behind her back, her clipboard forgotten  
until then. A frown crossed her face as she bent to pick it up. "Yes, he did," she  
affirmed as she stood tall again. Her standing tall only put her nose at Steve's  
shoulder, which she determined silently, was perfect. Quickly, she  
turned her mind back to her work. "Have you been witness to any of these spirits?"  
"No, no I haven't, I'm sorry to say."  
"And you?" she turned her eyes back to Steve as she formed her question.  
The detective blinked and then smiled. "No, not me."  
Kennedy sighed softly as she fidgeted with her pen. She had hoped that he  
had seen something strange in the hospital. At least then she would have been  
able to spend a little more time talking to him. *Stop it,* she hissed to herself.  
"Well, should you see anything," she said, looking back up to him, her heart  
skipping a beat as she looked into those lovely hazel eyes. "Let me know."  
"Will do," he responded, then glanced at his father who was tugging gently  
on his jacket sleeve. "I have to run, lunch time."   
"Of course," she smiled at him, flashing her most charming expression. She  
watched them go, sighing again as she did. Steve Sloan was most attractive with  
his softly sun-bleached brown hair that just begged to have fingers run through it.   
His gorgeously, kind hazel eyes that smiled at her when he spoke, sparkling with  
an inner light that called to her very soul. She suddenly felt like a school girl again.  
  
***  
  
Time passed, people came and went, entering the ER of Community General  
for one reason or another and Kennedy stood there, in the waiting room, listening  
for anything out of the ordinary.  
Norman Briggs had informed her that two of the three sightings had occurred in the Emergency Room area, though he hadn't been very specific as to  
the exact location. He had mentioned instruments, but not what kind. Kennedy  
wasn't sure if he had meant the actual surgeries or not. Wherever he had meant, she knew that something was there. She could feel a powerful presence. But, of course, it was a hospital. People died there on a daily basis. If not daily, at least weekly. There were bound to be unattended spirits roaming around, searching for the light that their souls seek. Wanting only to go to the other side, where they could rest in comfort and be with those that they had been with in life.  
A sudden scream pulled her from her thoughts. She spun and gazed around  
the waiting room, her eyes falling on a frightened young nurse that raced from the  
hall of the intensive care ward.  
As she approached them, she heard the nurse spouting things about movements in one of the empty rooms. Quickly, she turned and headed down the  
hall where the nurse had come from.   
Kennedy didn't know which room it was that the nurse had been in, but it  
was easy enough to find out. She could feel the cold chill of spiritual energy as  
she approached the correct room. She touched the frigid doorknob, only to pull  
them back with a gasp. It was much colder than she had expected it to be. Normally, the metal or wood of the door was cool to the touch, like something that had been cooled by an air conditioner, but instead the doorknob was cold like ice.  
"Ma'am, I don't suggest going in there," the nurse said from behind her,  
practically quaking in her shoes.   
Kennedy gave her a comforting smile. "It's all right, I know how to handle  
these things." Under normal circumstances, her statement was correct, but  
nothing in her career had prepared Kennedy McGuire for what she was about to see.  
Slowly, she opened the door, taking a peek inside, her eyes widening as she  
gazed on the sight before her. Her lips parted in shock, her eyes staring in surprise.   
A bright blue light filled the room, swirling and coalescing into a solid form,  
them breaking apart again. Some small objects moved with the light, floating  
around the room, but never straying far from where the light was centred.  
"Amazing," she whispered, stepping inside. A shiver went down her spine  
as she felt the temperature in the room drop rapidly.   
As if sensing her presence, the light swirled and turned to face her, or at  
least it seemed as if it did. Some tendrils of blue energy moved toward her,  
wrapping around her legs.  
She gasped as a sharp chill went through her lower extremities. That  
wasn't supposed to happen. One wasn't supposed to be able to feel spiritual  
energy like in the way that she had. Her toes started to tingle, her knees became  
weak.  
A soft moan escaped her lips as she dropped down to the floor, supporting  
herself on her hands.  
The light started to move toward her, the objects falling with a clatter to the  
tiled floor. It was almost as if the entity had found something new to play with,  
something more interesting than plastic cups and pitchers.  
Her eyes focused on what appeared to be the centre of the light, her mouth  
opening to chant the Lord's Prayer as she always did when faced with an apparition  
that she couldn't explain, but no sound came out. Her lips could not even form the  
words.  
The light engulfed her, blinding her for a moment. Somewhere in the back  
of her mind she could make out the sounds of shouting, but they were muffled,  
incoherent.  
Kennedy groaned a little, feeling the light lifting her up, pulling her from the  
cold floor of the hospital room. The icy fingers entered her mind, filling her head  
with thoughts that were not her own. Strange voices filled her mind, speaking to  
her with urgency.   
"What?" she whispered, shaking her head. The energy lifted her off of  
the floor, letting her feet dangle a little above the tiles. "Who are you?"  
The voices all spoke at once, confusing her. Nothing seemed understandable. Words and sounds merged in her head, causing pain to replace  
them.   
"Wait, I can't understand you," she breathed, trying to lift her hands to her  
head, but she found that they were too heavy. Her entire body tingled from the  
cold, her skin pimpling.  
The voices rose in pitch, each one trying to gain a hold on her mind, trying  
to make itself louder than the rest, but it was too much for her. With a groan of  
pain, darkness took hold, easing her into a silent, inky sleep.  
  
***  
  
"Lie still," a voice commanded her as she slowly opened her eyes. A smiling face beamed down at her, a mop of snowy hair balanced precariously on top of his head.  
"What happened?" she muttered, blinking slowly, trying to clear the fog from her mind.  
Mark smiled at her and stood tall, stretching his back a little bit. "Looks like you took quite a tumble," he mentioned.  
Kennedy looked at him and frowned. "What do you mean?" she asked, moving to sit up, but the doctor made her stay still.   
"It's best to lie still for now, Ms. McGuire," he ordered in his best doctor's voice, then continued. "Well, Jesse found you lying unconscious in one of the ICU rooms. Looked as if you fell off a chair or something."  
The fiery haired young woman shook her head a little, then stopped when she found that it only made the room spin more. "No, I wasn't on a chair," she whispered, hoping that the lower tone would halt the pounding in her head.  
"Then what happened?" the chief of internal medicine asked as he pulled a chair over to her bedside and seated himself.   
Her eyes met his, seeing that he was willing to listen to her. "You know what Norman said about the hospital being haunted," she started. He nodded slowly, urging her to continue. "Well, it is."  
He blinked, his brows rising high on his forehead. "Oh?"  
Kennedy nodded a little, knowing that it sounded unbelievable. "It's hard for those that aren't in direct contact with this kind of phenomenon to believe, but I know what I saw and what I felt. There is a definite spiritual presence here."  
Mark took a deep breath, leaning back in the chair. "Have you told this to Norman?"  
"Not yet," she shook her head. "I saw it right before I passed out."  
He nodded, his face taking on a contemplative expression. Silence filled the room as he sat there, his eyes studying the loose weave of the pale blue hospital blanket on the bed in which the young ghost hunter lay. "I suppose we should tell him."  
Kennedy looked up at him. "We?" she asked, rather surprised that he seemed to believe her.   
He nodded and smiled to her. "I'll go see if I can find Norman." He stood and patted her arm in a friendly manner then left the room.  
  
***  
  
"I knew it!" Norman stated loudly, a broad smile on his lips.  
Mark blinked and looked at him. "You knew that the hospital was haunted?"  
"Of course I did," he said, straightening his suit again. "Even before the nurses complained of the sightings, I had felt the presence."  
Kennedy smirked a little and looked down at the bed on which she lay. She hadn't bothered to get up, knowing that the good doctor would just tell her to rest. But she did have a job to do.  
"I have the gift," Norman whispered in hushed tones, almost as if it was some sort of fabulous secret.  
"The gift?" Mark inquired, looking at his boss with amusement.  
Norman nodded and raised his hands, wiggling his fingers a little. "I can feel the presence of the spiritual world."  
Kennedy wanted to laugh. There were a few that could feel such things, she being one of them, but it was not that much of a gift. In fact, she considered it more of a curse on most occasions. It had a tendency to interfere with her daily life.  
Mark nodded slowly and smiled at the hospital director. "Then maybe you can help out Kennedy," he suggested, which gained him a beaming smile from Norman and a scowl from the ghost hunter. "Why don't you go down to the ER and see if you can feel any of this spiritual energy."  
Norman smiled happily. "I'll do that," he said, smoothing his suit jacket again, just before leaving.  
The chief of internal medicine let out a huge sigh and turned to face the young woman, a silly smile gracing his lips. "Norman can be so helpful."  
Kennedy chuckled and shook her head, fidgeting a little with the blanket. She hated to be bedridden, especially when she had a job to do.  
Mark could see her nervousness, but knew better than to let her up and about just yet. "You rest for a little bit and I'll be back in a couple of hours."  
She didn't get a chance to argue the point before he departed the room.  
  
***  
  
"Norman, what are you doing?" Doctor Livingston inquired as the hospital director entered her path lab. She stood poised over a body, in the middle of an autopsy, the chest of the corpse held open with metal clips while she probed around the internals.  
"Looking for ghosts," he whispered, placing a finger to his lips.  
Her eyes widened a little as one brow rose in annoyance. "Didn't you hire someone to do that for you?"  
He nodded, his eyes searching the room with such concentration that she feared they would pop right out of the sockets. "Yes, I did."  
"And why isn't she doing that?"   
Norman raised a hand, quieting her for a moment, his head cocked to the side as if listening for something. Amanda only shook her head and returned to the autopsy she was performing.  
"She was injured earlier by the spirit that I asked her to find," he said finally, placing his hands on his hips. It was easier to work in the children's section of the hospital he determined.  
"Oh? And how did that happen?" the pathologist inquired, her mind more on her work than on what Norman Briggs was saying.  
"She was investigating a nurse's claim to have seen something in the ER. She actually saw the spirit, Amanda," he said, his voice completely serious.  
Doctor Livingston concluded that she would not get her work done in peace, so she gave in and laid her instruments down on the table. "She did?"  
He nodded, smiling a small smile. "Yes, and she knocked unconscious from the power of the entity."  
"And how is she?"  
Norman removed his hands from his hips, instead fidgeting a little with his tie. "Fine. Mark is keeping an eye on her." He looked up at Amanda, peering at her through his glasses. "She asked me to take care of searching out this spirit until Mark let her off of bedrest."  
Amanda smiled at him. "Well, why don't you go to the ER and look," she suggested as nicely as she could. She didn't mind Norman under normal circumstances, but he had a terrible tendency to pop in on her when she was in the middle of something.  
"Good idea," he said, raising a finger into the air. "Very good idea, Amanda." With that and a flourish of his hand, he left the pathology lab and a rather bemused pathologist to her work.  
  
***  
  
"Are you sure that a ghost attacked her, dad?" Steve asked, his cell phone perched on his shoulder and pressed against his ear, while his hands attempted to file some important paperwork.  
"Not really, but she says that she saw something and I believe that she did," Mark responded as he walked down the halls of Community General.   
"And what did she see?" he asked, taking a seat at his desk, his fingers coiling around a pencil while he opened a manila file folder.  
Mark took a breath and then shook his head. "Some sort of blue light."  
Steve frowned, scrawling his name on a piece of paper then closing the file. "A blue light? That's not much to go on, dad."  
"I know it isn't, but that's what she saw and that's all I have."  
"You think someone is out to get her?"  
"I don't know, Steve," he replied, sighing heavily. "I want to believe that she saw what she saw, but the whole idea of the hospital being haunted is a little hard to believe."  
"I agree with you there," the detective muttered, nodding to a fellow officer as a pile of folders was dropped on his desk. "How about I come over and talk to her as soon as I get a chance."  
Mark smiled and nodded his head, even though his son couldn't see that gesture. "That sounds great, Steve, I'm sure that she'll be happy to tell you what she saw."  
"All right, dad, I'll be over as soon as I wade through this pile of paperwork."  
The chief of internal medicine smiled and hung up his cell phone, slipping it back into his pocket.   
"Mark!" he heard shouted from behind him. He turned to see Jesse Travis making his way down the hall toward him. "Glad I found you. How's Ms. McGuire?"  
"Fine as far as I can tell. A little disoriented, but that's not unusual when one has passed out."  
Jesse smiled. "Good, I hope that she's back up and at it soon."  
"Why?" Mark asked, glancing at the young resident doctor.  
Jesse glanced around the two of them, making sure that there wasn't anyone near them before leaning in closer. "Because Norman is driving the ER nurses crazy with his ghost talk."  
Mark chuckled and shook his head. "Maybe we'd better get down there."  
  
***  
  
The room was quiet as Kennedy sat staring at the television, her eyes studying the images that raced back and forth, the sounds assailed her ears, though she ignored them. Her mind was on what had happened to her earlier. The light. The bright blue light. Where had it come from? Were they spirits that had merged into one?  
She let out a long sigh as she closed her eyes, trying to remember anything else about the incident. She had heard voices. Many, many voices all compounded into one. But she hadn't been able to pull them apart, to make sense of what they were saying. Had they wanted her help? Had they wanted to go home?   
"Ms. McGuire?"   
She opened her eyes and looked up at the owner of the voice, meeting those beautiful hazel eyes again.  
"Mr. Sloan," she said, a smile brightening her face.  
Steve Sloan entered the room, closing the door behind him with a soft click. "How are you feeling?" he asked, moving over to stand next to her bed, his hands stuffed into his jeans pockets.  
"A little tired, but all in all, I feel fine."  
"That's good to hear," he said, nodding a little as he looked at her, studying her deep, emerald eyes, watching how her fiery curls fell about her shoulders in satiny spirals.   
"So what brings you here?" she asked him, getting lost for a moment in his eyes as he gazed at her.   
He blinked, not realising at first that he had been staring at her. "Dad."  
Kennedy raised a brow, blinking a few times. "Your father?" she asked in surprise.   
He nodded, sitting down on the edge of her bed, feeling her shift a little to give him more room.   
Her eyes watched the way his body moved, imagining what must be underneath those imagination restricting clothes. That's when she caught sight of it. A golden shield attached to his belt. He was a cop. And she was sure that he thought she was either a con artist or nuts.  
"He was rather worried about you."  
Her eyes moved from the golden badge on his belt to meet those hazel orbs that had held her captivated a moment ago. "Really?" she asked, her voice showing that she was more than a little unnerved by his presence suddenly.  
Steve nodded, noting her change in tone. "He's afraid that someone attacked you."  
"I told him what I saw and what happened. There was no one in the room other than me."  
"I know that, but dad," Steve's sentence went unfinished as she tossed back the sheets and climbed out of the bed.   
"Why does everyone have to think that I'm crazy or conning them?" she asked, grabbing her shoes and pulling them on.  
"What?" he blinked, shocked at her tone of voice suddenly. It was obvious to him, though, that this was not the first time she had been questioned about her activities with such things.  
She stood up, smoothing out her shirt and turned to him. "Officer," she said, letting him know that she had seen his badge.  
"Detective," he corrected, standing as well.  
"Detective Sloan," she stated, her voice becoming rather annoyed. She hated the thought that this handsome man was just going to check her out and see what kinds of priors she had. "I am not a con artist, nor am I crazy."  
"I never said you were," he replied, crossing his arms over his strong, muscular chest. "Dad was worried that someone might have lured you into that room and attacked you."  
"For what purpose?" she asked, picking up her purse and slipping it over her shoulder.   
"I was hoping you could shed a little light on that."  
Kennedy sighed and looked at him. "I don't know why anyone would want to do something like that, but I firmly believe that it was a spiritual entity, not some maniac that wanted to kill me."  
Steve nodded a little, pursing his lips. He slipped a hand into his inside jacket pocket and retrieved a small, white business card. "If you want to talk, or anything, give me a call."   
She took the card from him, her eyes skimming it a moment, reading the words; "Steve Sloan, Detective, Homicide, LAPD". "I will," she said, looking back up at him, meeting his eyes.  
He nodded once, rather curtly. "Then, I'll talk to you then," he said, turning to open the door. Without another word to her, he left, leaving her standing in the room, the card grasped in her fingers, her eyes on the empty space before her.  
  
***  
  
Norman's attempts at searching for the ghosts himself turned into nothing more than a headache for all involved, which was most of the nursing staff of the ER. No one wanted to help him, since they didn't want to be marked as crazy, so he finally let it drop.   
The shifts changed as they did every night and Doctor Mark Sloan got in his black Jaguar and headed home, hoping to meet his son there and have a good dinner.   
The drive down the Pacific Coast Highway was quiet, much quieter than usual and it gave the doctor a chance to think. He was worried about the young woman who labelled herself a ghost hunter. Something in him feared that she was getting herself into far more than she needed to be into. There weren't any ghosts in the hospital and if there were, he was sure that they were nothing more than blue haired little ladies looking for the bathroom.  
A chuckle escaped his lips and he shook his head as he pulled into the driveway of his home, parking his car next to his son's silver Ford Taurus.  
  
"Steve, I'm home," he called as he entered the three level beach house on the Malibu coast.  
"In here, dad," his son returned from the small room where the TV was placed.   
Mark sat down his things and headed that way, taking the two steps up that went into the oak panelled room. He flopped down on the couch, covering his eyes with his hands. "What a day," he mumbled.  
"Tell me about it," his son responded, shaking his head. "There are too many criminals in this town."  
The chief of internal medicine chuckled. "Good thing, otherwise you'd be out of a job."  
Steve smirked and took a drink of his bottled water. "Good point."  
Mark glanced at the TV, seeing the evening news. There was nothing there he particularly was interested in, so his eyes fell to the stark white paper than lay on the coffee table. "What's this?"  
Steve's eyes fell to the paper that his father had picked up. "Kennedy McGuire's rap sheet."  
"Oh?" he asked, raising a brow as he glanced from the paper to his son.   
He nodded, taking another drink of his water, before putting the cap back on and setting it down on the marble coaster that lay on the edge of the coffee table. "I had to check her out, dad, you know that."  
Mark sighed heavily, nodding as he read the list of priors on the paper. "Assault, theft, con artistry," he sighed, shaking his head. "I didn't even see this coming."  
Steve took it from him and looked it over himself as his father removed the spectacles he wore, laying them down on the arm of the couch. "I know, dad, but the oldest one on here was from three years ago, and that was the assault charge."  
His father rubbed at his eyes, trying to force the oncoming headache into submission. "And what was that about?"  
"Apparently, an old boyfriend called her a few rather nasty names in public and she slugged him," Steve smirked, chuckling slightly.  
Mark raised a brow, his lips curving up into a smile. "Well, at least she seems to be able to protect herself from old boyfriends."  
Steve laughed, shaking his head. "Obviously."  
"Well, on a different note," the doctor said, pulling himself from the comfort of the couch. "What's for dinner?"  
  
***  
  
The door to the small, darkly decorated apartment opened, giving access to the slender framed figure that entered. A soft click signalled the closing of the entrance to the living quarters. A moment later a muffled curse came from the lips of the life form, then light flooded the room.  
Kennedy held her knee and frowned, uttering a few choice phrases at the  
sofa, then limped toward the kitchen, her stomach rumbling on the way.  
The refrigerator yielded nothing of interest, nor did the cabinets. They were  
all pretty much empty, as was her wallet. It had been far too long since she had  
had a viable case, at least one that offered payment. The only light in her day was  
the thought of finding the truth behind the blue entity she had witnessed at  
Community General and gaining a nice pay check from Mr. Briggs.  
That made her smile. Payment always made her smile. Since she had  
taken on the life of hunting down ghosts, money was hard to come by. But she  
always managed to survive. Somehow. It may not have been easy, but she did it.  
Her stomach rumbled again and she sighed, grabbing the last tube of  
crackers and a glass which she filled with water.  
"You'll just have to live with this," she muttered to her growling stomach as  
she moved back into the living room.  
The sofa creaked as she flopped down on it, but held her weight with ease.  
The television flared to life, adding a bluish glow to the room, a glow that reminded her of her experience earlier that night.  
Her brow furrowed as she sat there, staring at the images on the screen,  
though she really didn't see them. Kennedy had seen plenty of ghosts, spirits,  
apparitions, whatever one wanted to call them, but nothing had ever been like that  
light she saw earlier that night. Nothing. It was so powerful, so cold, so entrancing. It was almost too unreal.  
Her brow furrowed further, drawing her eyebrows together and wrinkling her  
nose up. Maybe the detective had been right, maybe it was nothing more than a  
hoax, though why anyone would deliberately do it was beyond her. And furthermore, why do it to others in the hospital. Unless it was all a plot to draw her there.  
"Nah," she muttered, munching on a saltine. "No, that was real. It had to be."  
  
***  
  
The next day brought clouds and rain to Malibu, drenching any and all in its path. Normally, Kennedy liked those kinds of days, but on this particular one, she wasn't feeling very chipper.  
She had woke up early that morning, unable to sleep from the disturbing  
dreams the night before and made her way to the bathroom, only to discover that  
there was no water.  
That brought another bought of curses from her, very similar to the ones  
the night before. Then, to make matters worse, she found an eviction notice slipped under her front door.  
"Oh, great, just what I needed," she frowned, wadding it up and throwing it across the room.  
  
***  
  
  
"Any more ghost reports, Norman?" Amanda asked upon seeing the hospital  
director in the doctor's lounge.  
He shook his head, swallowing the mouthful of banana he was consuming for his morning snack. "Nothing this morning."  
"Well, that's always good." She poured herself a cup of coffee, putting the usual cream and sugar into it.  
Norman quietly finished his banana, tossing the peel into the trash. He let  
out a long, heavy sigh, trying desperately to get the pathologist's attention.  
She knew what he was doing. Doctor Amanda Livingston hadn't been at Community General all that time without catching onto his ploys for attention.  
"What's wrong, Norman?" she asked, turning to face him.  
"I'm glad you asked, Amanda," he said, closing the copy of TIME that was in  
front of him on the table. "There's this woman."  
"Oh no, Norman," she said, shaking her head and making a b-line for the  
exit.  
"No, wait." He shot up out of his chair and intercepted her, placing his body  
in front of the door.  
"I'm not getting into another of your woman discussions, especially now  
that you have us on edge about ghosts."  
"Well, they kind of fit together," he stated, dropping his arms from where he  
had been blocking the door, his hands smoothing down the sides of his navy blue  
silk suit.  
She frowned at him, then blinked. "You mean," she started, getting an affirming nod from the hospital director. "Why, Norman, she must be twenty years younger than you."  
He shot her a glare that could silence a Jewish mother immediately, to which she only pursed her lips and settled down in a chair.  
"Don't think that I don't know that, Doctor Livingston," he replied quietly,  
laying his hands on the table. "I just find her quite attractive."  
"Who?" Doctor Travis queried as he walked in, the mop of brown hair on his  
head rather dishevelled.  
Amanda opened her mouth to speak, but was immediately cut off by Norman. "No one that you know," he stated, standing and leaving the room quickly.  
Jesse blinked and looked after him, then looked back at Amanda. "What was that all about?"  
  
***  
"Dad, I can't do anything if she doesn't want help. She made it rather clear  
when I talked to her yesterday, that she wasn't interested," Steve sighed, holding his cell phone to his ear as he drove toward the police station.  
"I know that, Steve, but I am a little worried. You did mention that she had  
an old boyfriend that she assaulted in public. It's possible that he's trying to get  
back at her." Mark Sloan sat behind his desk in his office, elbow resting on the  
polished wood surface, hand cradling his forehead.  
"That was three years ago, an awfully long time to hold a grudge," he mentioned, pulling up to a stop light.  
The doctor sighed, rubbing his temples for a moment, then sat back in his chair. "It just seems too perfect."  
"What does? This whole ghost thing?"  
"Yes," he nodded, glancing up and smiling at Delores as she sat down a fresh cup of coffee in front of him. "It seems rather convenient to me."  
"Why?"  
"Well, you have a woman who has had a history of being arrested for one minor thing after another, then gets the perfect job, just what she's looking for more or less, only to get assaulted herself while doing it," he explained, taking a long sip of the steaming liquid.  
Steve frowned as he started forward when the signal turned green. His eyes scanned the streets, searching out those that were committing wrongs. Instead of that, he discovered something quite unexpected. "Dad, I'll call you back," he said, then hung up without waiting for his father to say anything.  
He pulled off to the side of the road and parked, then hopped out, just  
avoiding a speeding Corvette that would have surely torn the door off his American  
made sedan.  
A soft curse came from his lips as he rounded the front of his car and made  
his way to the sidewalk and to the fiery haired woman standing at the bus stop.  
"Good morning," he said quietly from behind her.  
Kennedy spun around and looked at him, then blinked. "Detective, what are  
you doing here?" she asked, almost afraid that he had been either watching her or  
following her, looking for some reason to arrest her.  
"I was just driving by, on my way to the station when I noticed you standing here."  
"Oh," she said, nodding a little as she glanced down the street toward the coming city bus. "If you'll excuse me, Detective, I have work to do."  
Steve glanced at the bus and then looked back to her. "I can give you a lift to the hospital if you like."  
Kennedy turned her gaze back to him, meeting those lovely hazel eyes again. "I wouldn't want to trouble you."  
"It's no trouble," he assured her, taking a step toward his car. "The bus  
isn't the safest place these days, anyhow."  
After a moment's contemplation, she nodded and followed him to his car,  
slipping inside after he had opened the door for her. She latched the seatbelt over her chest and lap, then glanced at him as he got into the driver's side. "Were you really on your way to the station?"  
The engine purred as he turned the key in the ignition. "Of course I was.  
Did you think I was following you?" he smiled at her, glancing in the rear view mirror before pulling out onto the road.  
"I had my suspicions," she muttered, looking out the window as he drove.  
Steve took a deep breath, placing one elbow on the open window sill as he drove with one hand on the top of the steering wheel. "I will admit that I did check you out at the station."  
Kennedy smirked a little, sniffing slightly. "I didn't think you'd pass that opportunity up."  
"I do have to admit that you've been rather busy."  
She looked over at him, her green eyes catching the headlights of a passing  
car. The clouds dumped another onslaught of rain on them and the rest of Malibu.  
Steve frowned slightly as he turned on the windshield wipers.  
"I haven't been busy. It's been almost three years since anything else happened," she muttered, watching as the wipers did the best they could at keeping the rain off the windows.  
"The assault charge," he nodded, flipping his own headlights on. They didn't penetrate the pouring rain very well, so the detective slowed down to almost a snail's pace as he drove.  
"I had a good reason," she muttered, frowning as he slowed down.  
Steve nodded. "I already glanced over the report, but I didn't notice a good  
reason for the con charges, nor the theft charges."  
Kennedy snapped her head around and looked at the police detective. "You  
wouldn't understand if I told you."  
Detective Sloan frowned as well, finally pulling off into the parking area of Canal Park, one of the newer parks in the area. The downpour became so heavy that driving was nearly impossible. He manoeuvred the car into a parking space and turned it off, turning his body in the bucket seat to look at her. "Try me."  
She continued to frown, crossing her arms over her chest, her eyes on the splattering rain on the front windshield. "You don't know what's its like trying to  
survive with nothing, do you, detective?"  
"I have to admit that I don't," he said, shaking his head, then running his  
long, dextrous fingers through his sun-bleached hair.  
"Then, like I said, you wouldn't understand." Kennedy turned her gaze to the passenger door window, watching as the rain poured down, obscuring most of the view of the park.  
Steve studied her for a moment, knowing that she had been through some rough times. He had seen the files on her at the station. She had been in trouble with the law several times, though most of them didn't result in an arrest, but a warning. Though the past three years she had managed to make a clean break of things with her ghost hunter business.  
She felt his gaze on her and slowly turned her head to regard him. "Trying to see what I'm made of, Detective?"  
"No," he said quietly, shaking his head, his eyes moving from the lovely  
emerald orbs that rested just behind the lovely ruddy lashes gracing her lids, to her small button nose and full lips. His body shuddered as he imagined kissing those lips, feeling their softness against his own.  
"Then why are you staring at me?" she asked, her tone of voice ruining the image in his mind.  
He blinked and looked up at her. His tongue flicked out, moistening his lips. "I was just thinking."  
She made a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a sniff, then suddenly undid her seatbelt and opened the car door, stepping out into the pouring rain.  
"Kennedy," he said loudly, unbuckling his own seatbelt, then arguing with is door a moment before it finally opened, letting him out. "Kennedy, wait a minute!" he called after her racing to catch up as she stormed into the park, her fiery curls dripping as they hung in wet spirals down her back. Both of them were drenched to the bone.  
"Why should I?" she asked, her tone showing that she was getting tired of the way people treated her. Either she was a criminal or a toy. It didn't matter who it was, she was never a person. "So you can tell me that I'm nothing but a repeat offender whose bound to end up in jail again?"  
He stared at her, rather shocked at her sudden explosion. "That was not what I was thinking," he stated, having to raise his own voice over the din of the storm. A crash of thunder shook the ground, lightning following a moment later.  
Kennedy shivered in the cold rain, but was not about to let him get the upper hand. If she was going to argue, it was going to be on her terms and no one else's.  
"Oh, then tell me what you were thinking," she stated, frowning deeply at him. She wanted to smile in satisfaction as she watched him stammer, trying to find the right words. "Just as I thought." With that she spun on her heel and started off through the park again.  
Steve sighed, contemplating for a split second leaving her in the rain, but he couldn't do that. It just wasn't like him. He ran after her, dodging a park bench that he barely saw for the downpour of rain.  
She yelped softly as he grabbed her arm and spun her to face him, water  
dripping into his eyes. He reached up and wiped it away, though it did little good  
since more followed immediately after. Kennedy reached up removed the hair that had become plastered to her cheek and neck from the water that soaked her clothes and skin.  
"Wait," he said, his voice lower, yet still loud enough to be heard over the rain. "I," he started, then frowned when he couldn't figure out just how to put words to what he had been thinking.  
"You what?" she asked, pursing her lips, her arms crossing over her chest,  
pressing her wet, knit top against her skin, chilling her to the bone.  
Words failed him. They wouldn't come, no matter what he did. So instead he did the next best thing. Steve grabbed her arms in a tight grip, though not a painful one and pressed his lips to hers in a soft, unyielding kiss.  
A soft gasp escaped her lips as she felt him kiss her. Her hands, which had been tucked under her arms, slowly moved to his chest. She wanted to return his kiss, but instead she pushed him back.  
"How dare you," she said, her voice a low hiss, though not really angry, but more filled with shock.   
"I'm sorry," he replied, closing his eyes, though they snapped open the moment the flat of her palm connected with his cheek. He blinked and stared at her, his fingers reaching up to touch the stinging skin there. His lips parted to respond to her action, but he didn't have time. She had already stalked away, making her way toward the canal.  
"Real smooth, Sloan," he muttered, frowning as he watched her walk away. That time, he wasn't going to follow her. It wasn't worth getting slapped again. in his opinion.  
As he turned and started back for his car, his cell phone started to ring, beckoning him to answer. It was either the station or his dad, no one else called him.  
"Sloan," he answered, glancing back over his shoulder to where Kennedy had stopped to stare into the canal. The rain had slowed to a slight drizzle since they had parked.  
"Steve, I'm glad I caught you."  
"Dad? What is it?" he asked, frowning slightly. He knew that tone of voice. Something was definitely wrong.  
"There's been another sighting at the hospital," Doctor Sloan said, his voice urgent. "But this time someone's been hurt."  
  
***  
  
Most of the nursing staff was gathered around the entrance to the room where the accident, if one could call it that, had occurred, pointing and looking, trying to determine for themselves what had happened there.  
"Dad," Steve called as he raced into the hospital, Kennedy just behind him. It had taken some serious convincing on his part to get her to return to the hospital with him, but somehow he had managed it.  
Doctor Sloan turned from where he had been talking with a young, blonde nurse and looked at his son with an expression of complete relief.  
"Thank heavens," he said, letting out a long sigh.  
Kennedy looked at him, then toward the gathering crowd, her eyes studying them, gauging their reactions.  
"What happened?" Steve asked, concern edging into his voice. It was rare that his father wasn't concerned for a member of the hospital staff or patient, but in this instance Steve had a bad feeling that it was someone they knew.  
"There was another sighting," he replied, his eyes moving to glance at Kennedy, who met his gaze for a split second before moving toward the crowd of onlookers.  
"And?" the detective urge, hating the way his father drew things out at times.  
Kennedy approached the group, pushing her way through toward the room. An icy feeling still lingered there, chilling her to the bone, much the way it had the first time. She stepped inside and looked around, taking in everything.  
"Amanda was hurt," he said, looking back at Steve.  
"Is she all right?"  
Mark nodded slowly. "She's fine, just a little bruised, but whatever this thing is, it's getting out of hand."  
Steve returned his father's nod, a frown turning his lips downward. "I agree." He turned his gaze to the crowd, who were now starting to dissipate thanks to the motions of the young ghost hunter. "I'd better go see what she's up to."   
Mark nodded and turned to where Jesse was coming toward him while his son approached the young woman.   
Steve shivered as he entered the room, seeing Kennedy standing on a chair, peering up toward the ceiling.  
"Is it always this cold?" he muttered, watching her for a moment, before dropping his eyes to look where some things lay on the floor, scattered about.  
"When there's been spiritual activity, a cold chill is usually felt, though it generally doesn't linger this long." She reached up and touched something on the ceiling, bringing her fingers down to study them.  
"I suppose there's little chance that this is all a hoax," Steve suggested, hoping still that it was nothing more than someone out for a thrill. Though the thrill ended the moment someone was hurt.  
She leapt gracefully off of the chair and put her fingers up to his face. "No, this isn't a hoax," she stated, noticing his face wrinkle up as he looked at her fingers.  
"What is that?" he inquired, frowning as he moved his face away.  
"Ectoplasm," she said, smiling a little as she looked back at it. "This confirms that there was some sort of entity here."  
"Couldn't it just be Jell-O?" he suggested, smirking at his own humour.  
Kennedy rolled her eyes. "No, it's not Jell-O and Amanda could have proven that with a series of tests, but I don't want to bother her." She frowned slightly as she looked around. "But I could use a petri dish to get a better sample of it."  
Steve took a breath and let it out slowly. "I'll see what dad can come up with."  
  
***  
  
"How's Amanda?" Mark asked as he looked at Jesse.  
"She's fine, a little crabby and sore from where she hit the floor, but she's going to be fine." Jesse smiled at him as he stuffed his hands into his lab coat pockets.  
Mark chuckled and shook his head. "Amanda's always crabby when she has an accident."  
"Dad," Steve said from behind him. The Chief of Internal Surgery turned and smiled at his son. "Kennedy wants a petri dish. She says that she found something."  
Jesse raised his brows. "Something that requires a petri dish?" he asked, rather confused at the concept of a ghost hunter wanting a petri dish.  
Steve nodded, slipping his hands into the pockets of his still damp jeans. "Yeah, ecto-something or other."  
"Ectoplasm."  
Jesse glanced over Mark's shoulder as the hospital director approached them. "Ecto-what?"  
"It's the residue that a spiritual entity leaves behind," he replied, proving his fount of useless knowledge was in full swing.  
Mark looked at Steve, who nodded at his, while pursing his lips. "Yep, that's what she said."  
"Well, then I think she needs a petri dish." Mark smiled broadly.  
  
***  
  
"Are you sure that isn't Jell-O?" Jesse asked as he watched her scrape some of the clearish substance from the ceiling.  
"It isn't Jell-O," she stated, frowning down at him as she closed up the glass container and jumped off the chair for the second time. "It's ectoplasm."  
"Yeah, the stuff that ghosts leave behind," he muttered as he watched her leave the room. He glanced around, getting a rather eerie feeling suddenly, then raced out after her.  
  
***  
  
"Are you about this, Amanda?" Mark asked as the hospital pathologist settled onto the stool in front of her lab table.  
"Yes, Mark, I am," she stated, opening the petri dish that Kennedy had handed her. "Anyhow, I'd like to know what happened to me in there and if this is the only way to find out, then that's what I'm going to do."  
The snowy-haired doctor sighed softly, shaking his head as he watched her place some of the clear substance on a glass slide and slip it under the microscope.  
The door to the path lab opened and Steve stepped in, closing it gently behind him. "So what's the word on the Jell-O?" he asked, smirking as his dad let out a soft chuckle.  
Mark placed his hand under his chin and looked from his son to the pathologist. "Amanda's looking at it now." He turned his gaze back to his son. "Where's Kennedy?"  
"Taking another look at the room. I think she's drawing out a map or something," he said, shrugging slightly. In a way her interest in ghosts fascinated him, in another he was sure that she was a little nuts, but he wasn't going to say anything. At least not till he had some sort of proof that she wasn't really seeing anything.  
Mark nodded and turned his attention back to Amanda, who was scrutinising the slide through the magnifying lens on the microscope.  
"Well," she started, gaining her audience's attention immediately. She sat back, taking a long breath and turned slightly on the stool to look at them. "It's not Jell-O."  
  
***  
  
"How long have you been doing this?" Jesse asked as he watched her sketch some things on a piece of paper secured safely to a clipboard.  
"Do what?" she asked, her mind focused on her work and not really on what the young doctor was saying.  
"Hunting ghosts," he clarified as he stepped to the side, moving just out of her way.  
"Only officially for about two years," she said, looking up from her map to gaze around the room, making sure she hadn't forgotten anything. "But I've been studying it since I was about twelve."  
He looked at her in surprise. "Really?" he asked, rather amused that such a lovely young woman would find such a profound interest in ghosts.  
She nodded, making an 'x' on the map where Amanda had fallen. "Ever since I encountered my first spirit."  
"Wow," he muttered, opening his mouth to ask her another question, but Norman's sudden smiling face stopped him.  
"How's the hunting going?" he asked, rubbing his hands together in anticipation of a good answer to his inquiry.  
Kennedy slowly looked over to him. "As well as can be expected," she replied, turning back to her map where she made some more marks.  
Her answer caused Norman's face to fall. "What do you mean? You haven't found the ghost and trapped it yet?"  
"Trapped?" Jesse asked, glancing from Norman to her.  
"Trapped?" she asked as well, looking at Norman in bewilderment. "I don't trap ghosts."  
Norman blinked and looked at her with an expression that would have befitted a child who didn't receive that toy for Christmas that they wanted so badly. "But," he started.  
"Mr. Briggs, I never trap spirits. I find them and direct them to where they need to go. There is no trapping, no proton beams, no containment units. This is not Ghostbusters," she clarified, pushing past him and out into the hall, leaving a befuddled Norman Briggs and an amused Jesse Travis looking after her.  
  
***  
  
"If it's not Jell-O, what is it?" Steve asked, frowning slightly as he seated himself on another stool. Part of him wanted to know what it was, but another part of him didn't. At least if it had been gelatine, he could have explained it better.  
"It's organic," Kennedy said from the doorway, gaining their attention immediately.  
Mark looked back to Amanda, who nodded slowly in agreement. "It's definitely organic."  
"Organic?" Steve asked. "You mean that it used to be a person?"  
"Or several," Kennedy responded, stepping into the lab completely and closing the door behind her. "Amanda, what happened to you in that room?"  
The pathologist took a deep breath and looked at her, then at the others. She was rather reluctant to go into details, but decided that it was better to go ahead and tell them instead of making it seem like nothing.  
"I went into the room to get some of the sheets from the closet for a patient. Since a couple of the ER nurses were sick, I volunteered to lend a hand," she stared, sighing softly as she closed her eyes. "I didn't notice anything wrong at first, but the room started to get very cold."  
Kennedy nodded, making a few notes on her clipboard, which Steve glanced at as she wrote, noticing that she had lovely penmanship. He blinked and frowned, forcing his attention back to Amanda. No point in making it worse, he thought, she already slapped me.  
"Then there was this blue light. It filled the room immediately. It was almost blinding," Amanda continued, looking at Mark who nodded to her, then to Kennedy who was writing down all that she said. "Then the voices started."  
The ghost hunter looked up at her. "Voices?"   
She nodded. "Several. I couldn't make out what they were saying, it was like they were all talking at the same time."  
Kennedy nodded to her, scribbling down something else. "I heard them, too."  
The pathologist blinked. "You did?"  
Kennedy looked at her and took a breath. "Yes, when I had my encounter, I heard them. There were so many, I couldn't understand them either."  
"Did the light," Amanda stopped as she tried to think of a way to say what she wanted to, "touch you?"  
"Yes, my legs," Kennedy affirmed.  
"Well, it seems that both of you had the same experience," Mark stated. "And far too similar to be a coincidence."  
Steve frowned at his father, then slipped off the stool, standing tall. "So the three of you are telling me that this was a ghost."  
"Nothing else can produce an organic substance like that." Kennedy turned to look at him, her slightly wet hair hanging down her back like liquid fire.  
Mark suddenly noticed that both of them were damp and frowned. "Why are you both wet?" he asked rather suddenly.  
Kennedy looked at him and then at Steve. She smiled sweetly at him and then took a breath as she picked up her clipboard. "I think I'll let you explain that," she said, turning to leave the path lab.  
The three of them watched her go, then Amanda and Mark turned their eyes back to Steve, expecting a good explanation.  
  
***  
  
Kennedy returned to the room to find the hospital director standing on a chair, eyeing the ceiling where the substance was still staining the stuccoed white paint.  
"Mr. Briggs?" she asked calmly, her clipboard tucked under one arm.  
The hospital director yelped and spun around on the chair, narrowly missing the dangling light fixture with his head. "Please, do not do that," he said, holding a hand to his chest.  
She smirked slightly, then let it return to a serious expression. "I apologise, Mr. Briggs, but you are in the middle of my investigation."  
He cleared his throat and gingerly stepped down off of the chair, smoothing his suit again. Kennedy noticed that he seemed to do that a lot. She wasn't sure if it was just a nervous habit or if it was something else.   
"Yes, of course, I'll get out of your way." He took a few steps toward the door, then turned to her again, his mouth opening for a moment.  
Kennedy looked at him, one brow raised, her hair still slightly damp as it hung down her back.   
Norman stared at her for a moment, then blinked and left without ever saying a word.  
The young ghost hunter shook her head in amusement, then continued with her investigation of the room and its contents.  
  
***  
  
The day passed quickly. No other incidents were reported in the hospital, at least not of the spiritual nature. Amanda was fine, though a little sore from her encounter with the glowing entity. Mark was still curious as to why both the young ghost hunter and his son were wet and Steve was not divulging any information. Jesse, on the other hand, had a pretty good idea as to why they were both wet, but wasn't about to open his mouth.  
Kennedy decided to stick around the hospital that night, hoping that maybe the entity would make another appearance and she could get some more first hand information. For a moment, she wished she had a camera to capture it with, but decided against it, since she would probably only end up breaking it.  
Community General quieted down considerably that night, leaving an eerie silence to blanket the building. To most that silence would have been unbearable, but to Kennedy McGuire it was perfect. The quieter the better when it came to her work. In the event that a ghost should make an appearance, absolute quiet was essential.  
The ghost hunter sat in the room, the same one where the attack on Doctor Livingston had occurred. She seated herself on the hospital bed, her legs crossed Indian style, the clipboard on her lap. Her eyes darted around the room, waiting for any sign of the ghostly entity.   
She wasn't sure how long she had actually sat there before she felt the room grow cold. The air temperature plummeted, leaving an icy bite in the air. Kennedy shivered uncontrollably as she sat her clipboard to the side, moving to slip off the bed.  
"Hello?" she queried softly, her eyes darting around the room.  
The glow started to fill the room, soft at first, growing to a blinding intensity, then dieing back down to something akin to a normal fluorescent bulb. Kennedy gazed at the light, watching it hover and swirl like droplets of food colouring in a bowl of water.  
"What are you?" she asked, her voice soft, barely audible.  
The voices started then, trying to respond to her, trying to tell her what she needed to know, but they all started speaking at once. She raised her hands to her ears, trying to block it out, but the voices entered her mind, pulsing and throbbing with their undeterminable words.  
"Stop!" she shouted, sinking to her knees from the unimaginable pain of having so many voices speaking to her at once. There was little in the world that could compare to the feeling of hearing so many speakers in your mind. It was like hearing the entire world's thoughts all jumbled together in one huge cacophony of sound.  
Her fiery hair fell about her shoulders as she shook her head, trying to push the voices out of her mind. "Please," she begged, dropping her head forward, wrapping her arms around her. If anyone had seen her at that moment, they would have been assured that she was insane.  
The light brightened again, then a single voice spoke to her. "Kennedy," the voice whispered. The tone was kind and soft, obviously female.  
Her eyes snapped up to the light, seeing a familiar face gazing back at her. "Gramma?" she asked quietly, staring in shock at the face.  
The kind, ghostly image nodded to her, a bluish tinged hand reaching for her. "Hello, dear."  
"Gramma, what are you doing here?" she asked, softly, wanting to back away, yet at the same time wanting to move forward, to be held in those loving arms once again. Her heart ached at the thought of the loss of her grandmother. It had been so many years ago, she'd almost forgotten how much she missed her.   
"It's a long story, dear," she said, her voice drifting around the room, bouncing off the walls and stuccoed ceiling like a child's rubber ball.   
"Tell me," she begged, gazing into those kind eyes she remembered so well. "Please tell me."  
The woman drifted toward her, ghostly, icy fingers reaching out to caress the cheek of her granddaughter. "I died in this hospital, when you were but a little girl."  
Kennedy shivered, not only from her grandmother's spiritual touch, but also from the vague memories of her death. "I know."  
"I have never been able to leave," she continued, letting her ghostly fingers fall, to merge back into the bluish hue of her body. "I am trapped here. I want to leave, but I can not."  
"Why not?" she asked, taking a slow breath. Suddenly, she felt a little more comfortable with the spiritual encounter, knowing that one of the entities was her own family. Somehow it made it bearable.  
The woman looked at her, the shape of her head tilted slightly to the side, as if studying her. Slowly, she spoke, taking her time in her tale. "I have never found the light."  
Kennedy knew what she spoke of. When souls were ready to pass on to the next world, be it whatever afterlife they chose to believe in, they were supposed to gravitate toward the light. But a rare few souls did not. Either they never found the light, or they were not yet ready to enter it. Once in a great while, there was something that had yet to be finished in the living realm, therefore they stayed there, waiting until the proper time to complete whatever it was that was unfinished.  
"It's been so long. You haven't found the light in all the years that you have been here?" she asked, frowning slightly as she tried to match a reason to what her grandmother's spirit had told her.  
The ghostly head shook in answer to her query. "Not at all."  
She took a deep breath and got to her feet, feeling the chill of the frigid air again. "I want to help you. And the others," she added quickly. "I want to help you find the light. But I am not sure how."  
The brilliance of the light increased suddenly as all of the voices began to speak again. She groaned, squeezing her eyes shut as she tried to separate them, tried to discern single words. Her grandmother's voice was lost among them, becoming just another jumble of sounds and pleas.  
"Please, I can't help you if you won't separate," she begged, looking toward the light, the brightness of it blinding her for a moment. A shrill moan emanated from the blending of the spirits, then it was gone.  
"No," she whispered, gazing at the place where the entity had been, where her grandmother had spoken to her. "Please, no." Slowly, she slipped to her knees, the enormity of what had just occurred dawning on her. It far too much for her mind to comprehend suddenly and blackness crept into her thoughts, filling her, swirling around, taking her to the land of inky night.  
  
***  
  
"We found her in the same room where Amanda had been attacked yesterday," Jesse explained, glancing toward the door of the room where Kennedy lay sleeping.  
"Is she all right?" Steve asked, frowning as he crossed his arms over his chest.  
Jesse shrugged slightly. "As far as I've been able to tell. She's asleep right now, but I don't know if that sleep was drug induced or just from exhaustion."  
Steve frowned further and opened his mouth to speak, but his father cut him off. "How's the sleeping ghost hunter?" he asked, smiling at Jesse with his usual beaming charm.  
"Still sleeping," he replied, smiling as well.  
Steve looked at his dad, one brow lowered slightly on his forehead. "What happened, dad?"  
"Not really sure," he responded, slipping his hands into the pockets of his lab coat. "As far as I know, she just fell asleep."  
The detective took a breath and let his hands fall, slipping them into the pockets of his slightly faded jeans. "So, no criminal involvement or anything this time."  
"No," Doctor Sloan shook his head. "Not that I can tell."  
"Then why am I here?" Steve asked, fiddling with is keys in his pocket a moment.  
His father beamed at him, being his normal happy self. "Just thought you might like to know that she's all right after her night of ghost hunting."  
The homicide detective rolled his eyes and turned. "I'm going to get some breakfast," he mumbled and started off down the hall toward the cafeteria.  
Jesse snickered softly and looked to Mark. "You getting the same picture I am?"  
"I believe so," the good doctor nodded, smiling at his young resident. "I do believe so."  
  
***  
  
The room was dark as she opened her eyes, taking in her surroundings for a moment, before remembering what had happened the night before.   
"Gramma," she breathed, sitting up quickly in bed, regretting it almost immediately. Her head throbbed in pain, her eyes felt like they were going to burst. "OK, note to myself. Don't sit up so quick next time."  
Slowly, very slowly, she pulled the covers back and slipped out of the bed, her hazy eyes searching for her shoes in the darkness. She knew that turning on the light would only make the pain worse, so instead she fumbled around without the added help of brightness.  
Finally, she found them, sitting just out of the way of the bed and slipped them on, tying them tightly before standing and making her way toward the door.  
She squeezed her eyes shut as bright light assailed her from the corridor. A soft groan passed her lips, but echoed in her head like a foghorn.   
"Good morning," Jesse smiled at her, noticing the door opening out of the corner of his eye.  
"That's what you think," she muttered, stepping into the hall.  
"Sleep well?" he asked, reaching out to help her stand upright.  
"I don't remember exactly." Kennedy looked at him, noting that he looked rather out of place for some reason. She assumed it was just her headache. "Do you have anything for a pounding headache?"  
Jesse chuckled softly and helped her down the hall. "This is a hospital. I'm sure I can find something."  
  
***  
  
Jesse steered Kennedy toward the cafeteria, wanting to sit her down and get her to drink some coffee. He noticed Steve sitting alone at a table and headed in that direction.   
"Here you are," he said, sitting her down, a hideous frown on her face.  
Steve looked up and opened his mouth to protest the young doctor's decision but never got the chance. Jesse turned and headed for the counter, poured some coffee, then sat it on the table in front of her.   
"Now, drink that and relax. You'll feel better in a bit," he said, patting her shoulder. "I have rounds. I'm sure that Steve will keep you company."  
The detective frowned at him, making a silent promise to hurt him soon. Jesse only smiled, not realising the bodily harm that was headed his way in the near future, and turned to leave.  
"Gee, thanks," Kennedy muttered, taking a slow drink of the coffee.  
Steve looked at her, seeing that she was in pain and decided to forestall the rude comment he had formed. It wasn't like the homicide detective to be rude on a normal basis, but since the incident in the park, he couldn't really think of a reason not to be rude.   
"Sleep well?" he asked, turning his attention back to the paper in his hand.  
"As well as a person can sleep after having another encounter with the spirit," she replied, glancing up at him.   
"Another?" he inquired, slightly surprised as he sat his paper down on the table.   
She nodded, wondering yet if he was starting to believe her.   
Steve studied her a moment, pondering the possibility that she was telling the truth. Could there be a ghost in Community General Hospital? And if there was, why was it terrorising people?   
"This time it was a little more fruitful than the other," she said, letting her coffee cup rest gently on the table top, her eyes lifting to meet his gaze.  
"What happened?" Steve leaned forward, taking on the air of the police officer he was. His arms crossed on the tabletop, his hands one on top of the other.  
She slowly explained to him all that had happened to her the night before, including the cold chill to the air and the voices. Her story wasn't a long one, but it was quite intriguing, at least to her it was.  
"And this single voice that you heard? You're positive that it was your grandmother?" he asked, his thumb brushing gently over the skin of his arm, his eyes studying her.  
Kennedy took a deep breath and nodded. "I'm sure it was. I saw her. She looked just the way I remembered her," she said quietly as her gaze fell to the table, her eyes following the faux wood-grain.  
"Could it not have been something brought on by your intense concentration?"   
She shook her head, some red curls falling over her shoulder. "No, I doubt it. It was too real." She lifted her eyes to him and tilted her head to the side, causing some more of her fiery hair to fall about her shoulders. "Do you believe me?"  
Steve cleared his throat and sat back in the chair. "Well, I wouldn't go that far."  
She frowned at him, then took another sip of her coffee.  
Norman came racing into the cafeteria, having obviously just heard about her encounter the previous night. "Ms. McGuire, are you all right?" he asked, pulling up a chair and sitting down at the cafeteria table, practically pushing Steve out of the way.  
She looked up at him and nodded. "Yes, I'm fine. A bit of a headache, but nothing that I can't get over."  
"I'm so relieved to hear that," he said, glancing back at Steve. "Aren't you relieved to hear that?"  
"Oh yes, very relieved," he commented, shooting a charming smile at her.  
She narrowed her eyes at him and then looked back to Norman. "Mr. Briggs," she started, leaning forward a little. "There is a ghost haunting this hospital."  
The hospital director stared at her, his mouth dropping open. "There is?" he whispered loudly, glancing about, hoping that no one heard them.  
She nodded, her eyes taking on a rather amused glint, though her facial expression stayed the same.  
Steve noticed the amusement in her eyes, but was unable to hide his own as well as she could. He wanted to burst out laughing. Norman was known to be more than a little eccentric at times, especially when it came to dealing with things that were not normal. He remembered a time when Norman was positive that he was psychic and tried proving it to Jesse.   
"There is a ghost in this hospital, though it is not wanting to harm anyone," she replied, her tone professional.  
"Then why is it here?" Steve asked, taking the words right out of Norman's mouth. His question got him a nasty glare from the man in question.  
"They want to go home," she stated matter-of-factly.  
"They? I thought there was only one," Norman pointed out, his fingers tapping nervously on the table.   
"It's one entity, Mr. Briggs, but several conscious beings," she explained. "They all have grouped together into one, in the hopes of making some form of contact."  
"Who, who, who are they?" Norman stammered, getting slightly nervous at the thought of having several spirits floating around the hospital, annoying the patients and staff.  
Kennedy took a breath and leaned back in her chair, her headache starting to finally go away. "I only know one that's definite, and that's my grandmother, Harriet Nunn."  
Steve stayed silent throughout the remained of the ghost discussion, his eyes and mind focused on this outpouring of information. He could tell that she was not making up her story, unless of course she was very good at lying, but he didn't believe that was the case. He did have a good feeling that she was telling the truth, or at least she believed in what she was saying.   
Steve Sloan was not the kind of man to believe in ghosts. It had taken him a long time to get to the point where his dad was sure that he believed in Santa Claus, regardless of the fact that he knew it was his father doing all the presents on Christmas Eve. He never believed in things that didn't exist. Maybe that was what made him such a good cop.   
But now, he had the choice to believe a beautiful young woman, who seemed very sure of what she was saying, or to ignore her beliefs and label her a con artist. It was a hard decision to make.  
"I don't know exactly how I can get rid of them, Mr. Briggs."  
"Don't you have some sort of containment thing?" he asked, fidgeting with this tie some.  
She smirked and shook her head. "This is not Ghostbusters," she informed him again. "I don't trap them and send them to a negative plane of existence. They need to find the light to go where they belong. Some of them are here for a purpose."  
"Like what kind of purpose?" Steve asked, crossing his legs, his hands resting in his lap.  
She turned her eyes to him, those lovely hazel orbs catching her attention fully. "Some of them have unfinished business."  
"Like what?" Norman prodded, trying to get as much information out of her as he could. He hated not knowing what he was paying for.  
Kennedy took a deep breath. "Some spirits haven't yet said good bye to a loved one. Maybe some of them have a secret they need to tell before passing on. There are a million different things that they might need to do."  
"How do we find out what it is?" Steve asked, his eyes gazing into hers. He noticed that when she answered Norman's question, her eyes never left his.   
"We have to ask them."  
  
***  
  
"Is this really a good idea?" Jesse asked, holding a stark white candle in one hand, matches in the other.   
"This is the best way to help these spirits," Kennedy explained for what had to have been the dozenth time. She had left the hospital not long after her conversation with Norman and Steve, making her way to her apartment, where she found another eviction notice and discovered her phone service had been shut off.   
Meanwhile, Steve had spoken with his father, Amanda and Jesse about what she said. None of them were sure what to believe, though Mark had the best idea of all. He noted that maybe they should go along with what she was suggesting, just to be sure.  
Amanda and Jesse were more than a little unsure, but agreed to lend a hand nonetheless, even though it was against their better judgement.  
Kennedy spent the rest of the day gathering together the things that she needed to hopefully help the spirits find their way back to where they needed to go. She wasn't sure about what she was doing, since normally she wasn't asked to get rid of them, just to find out what they were there for and who they were. This was all rather knew to her.   
"Don't tell me that we all have to stand in a circle or something," Amanda muttered, frowning as Jesse lit her candle, then his own.  
Kennedy looked at her. "I have no idea. I was just using the candlelight as a beacon."  
Mark and Steve both looked at each other, wariness mirrored in the eyes of father and son. "Beacon?" Steve finally asked.  
She nodded, thanking Jesse as he lit her candle, then moved to light the others. "There are reports in various studies that spirits are moved more toward candlelight than any other form of light. And since we want to find out what these spirits need to get home, I assumed that candles were the best way to get them here."  
Norman took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. He didn't like the idea of meeting a spirit face to face. "So what do we do?" he asked quietly, his eyes darting around the room. He was sure that any moment some sort of skeletal being was going to pop out and scare him.  
Kennedy looked at him, then at the others. "Wait."   
  
They didn't have a long wait. Either the candlelight worked as she had hoped or the spirits just knew what was going on.   
The room grew cold, the temperature dropping to a frigid level, causing them all to shiver. Then the light followed, filling the room with a blue glow that brightened to a brilliant intensity before fading down to something bearable to the human eye.  
Norman stared at the blue entity that floated in the centre of the room, his mouth gaping open as his eyes widened. Without a second thought, he crossed himself, muttering the Lord's Prayer.  
"Oh my," Mark whispered, blinking in shock as he also stared at the being, watching the blue light swirl around itself like coloured water in a crystal bowl.  
"You weren't conning us," Steve whispered, moving to stand near her, his protective nature coming through.  
"Of course I wasn't," she muttered, glancing at him, feeling a sense of safety as he stood near her.  
"Was that what attacked you, Amanda?" Jesse asked, whispering to the hospital pathologist who nodded, her wide eyes gazing at the hovering light before her.  
Kennedy took a deep breath and looked at the light then at the others. "When it starts speaking, please try and focus on one voice. I don't know how many there are, but there are a lot in there."  
The others nodded rather absently, all staring at the light, watching as it moulded and formed into rather odd shapes, all moving around each other.  
The ghost hunter watched their reactions for a moment, then looked to the light. "Gramma?" she asked softly, her voice echoing in the silence of the room like a shout.  
At first nothing happened, then slowly, the spirit of her grandmother pulled forth from the light. "Hello, dear."  
Kennedy smiled, feeling a warmth filling her at the sight of that loving face and those happy eyes. "I want to help you, Gramma," she explained, taking a step forward.  
She felt Steve's hand take hers, keeping her from going to far forward. Her eyes left her grandmother's apparition for a moment, to meet Steve's. He looked at her, studying her, then smiled a little and looked back at the light.  
Kennedy felt her heart leap as she saw his smile. Something in that told her more than words could, but she had to keep focused.   
"You already know how to help me," her grandmother's voice said to her, causing the ghost hunter to return her attentions to the ghost before her.  
"I do?" she asked softly, receiving a nod and a smile from the figure.  
"Yes. I never got to say goodbye to you. I never got to see you before I left. But now I have. I'm ready to go now," her grandmother explained, smiling at her with the same smile and bright eyes that she remembered.   
Kennedy reached up and wiped a single tear from her eyes as she tried to keep her emotions in check. "I miss you, Gramma, but I know that you need to rest."  
The figure nodded, then looked back behind her for a moment. "It's time," she whispered, looking back to Kennedy. "The light is here. I can go now."  
The ghost hunter nodded as she took a deep breath. "Rest well, Gramma. I love you."  
"And I love you, Kennedy," she whispered as she smiled at her.   
Kennedy watched her turn and move away from her, heading toward the light that only she could see.   
Slowly, as the others spoke to spirits that only they could hear and see, the light faded, diminishing in brilliance until there was nothing left in the room. The cold air warmed again, the glow faded to nothing.  
All of the living occupants of the room, let out a deep sigh of relief, then looked at one another.   
"Well, that was an interesting experience," Mark started, blowing out the candle that he had been holding. "And I think that I have a few phone calls to make." The snowy haired doctor smiled and sat down the white shaft of wax, then opened the door, blinking in the bright light of the hallway.  
"Me, too," Amanda replied, doing the same. Jesse followed suit and soon only Kennedy and Steve were left in the room.  
Neither of them looked at each other, both were trying to find some sort of explanation for what had happened there. Kennedy had never been one for romance, her life didn't permit it. Anyhow, who would want to be involved with someone who hunted ghosts for a living.   
Steve, on the other hand, was trying to determine if what had happened in that room was real or not. And he didn't just mean the ghosts. He had felt an overpowering desire to protect her, a woman that he was sure, not more than forty eight hours before, was a con artist.  
He sighed softly as he blew out his candle, setting it down on the small table with the others. "Well, I guess that's over," he commented, moving to lean against the nearest wall.  
Kennedy nodded, making a few notes on her clipboard. "It is, at least until another spirit decides that it isn't ready to leave this world yet," she said, glancing up at him.   
He nodded as well, his eyes studying her for a moment. "I suppose that I should leave you to your work," he said, standing tall and turning to grab the door knob.  
"No, wait," she urged, laying her clipboard down on the bed and moving over to him. "I wanted to apologise to you."  
His brows raised high on his forehead as he looked down at her, letting go of the door knob at the same time. "Apologise? For what?"  
She dropped her gaze to his chest, studying the knit weave of his dark red polo styled shirt. "For slapping you yesterday."  
Steve smirked and chuckled. "It's all right, Kennedy."  
Her eyes lifted to meet his and she smiled softly. "You just surprised me, that's all."  
He reached out and touched her cheek. The roughness of his fingertips against the smooth skin of her face made her breath catch in her throat. "I surprised myself," he admitted, smiling down at her, losing himself in her eyes once again.  
She couldn't speak. She couldn't find the words amidst her enormous vocabulary. Nothing seemed to fit what she wanted to say, what she felt inside. Though, in reality, she wasn't sure what she was feeling inside. All she knew was that she wanted to be close to him, with him, to know him better.  
Steve smiled down at her, then slowly bent, his lips brushing gently against hers for a split second before the door opened and Norman came bouncing in.  
"Here's your," he stopped and blinked, then frowned slightly. "No fraternising with employees, Detective."  
Steve chuckled and pulled back from her, then smirked at the hospital director, who was holding a check in his hands. Steve plucked that check from his fingers and handed it to her. She readily accepted it, smiling down at it and then at Steve and Norman.  
"I don't think that she's an employee anymore, Norman," he said, slipping his hand into her free one.   
Norman frowned, then cleared his throat, straightening his suit some. "No, I supposed she's not." With that he turned and left, a rather unattractive frown on his face, mumbling something about woman and their fickleness.  
Kennedy only raised a brow as he left, then looked at Steve. "Well, I guess that's over."  
Steve smiled down at her, his fingers tightening around her slender hand. "That might be, but I think something else is just beginning," he said softly, bending to kiss her again.   
She returned his kiss as she thought to herself that this had to be the best end to a case she'd ever had.  
  
  



End file.
